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Enac 20 Years

Celebrating 20 years with 36 synchronised screens

In collaboration with : Garage Cube

ENAC celebrated 20 years by playing a continuous contemplative video, made of a thousand archive ENAC lab files. Through the 36 synchronised screens delimiting four areas of exhibiting labs. As well as showcasing 20 years of research, the video designed worked as part of the signage. 

In 2022, ENAC organized an event to celebrate its 20 years in the Swiss Tech Center. For this occasion, they invited 60 labs to bring their creations and research realized over their 20 years of work at EPFL. ENAC inquired us to realise a visual complentative video our if the labs archives. 

36 Synchronised Screens

The labs were organized into four sections corresponding to thematic work fields. We limited each section by a row of screens (36 in total) that outlined the area of the exhibition and created a visual scenographic signaletic. Each section was defined by a color, a name, and the position of display tables, within the screen space. We edited a continuous video (made of a thousand archive files) that passed through the different screens of each area. 

The screens were synchronized in groups of 6 to 8, delivering an immersive space. We played with different tempos on the screen rhythmics to reach a dynamic composition of video, animations, and blocks of color. 

The Context

Twenty years ago, EPFL created the ENAC Faculty by bringing together architecture, civil engineering, and environmental sciences and engineering, thus making it possible to embrace all the challenges of sustainability in the natural and built environment through an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach to research, teaching, and innovation.  

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HEAD 2022 Inauguration - Modular Display System

Inauguration HEAD

Assemble, Disassemble, Stock and Re-design

In collaboration with: Ivan Lavague, A.D.O. Atelier des Ouates, Moléson Impression

A modular design: metal connectors, circular wooden bars, and metallic plates, metal binders. Four materials to design different modular display system for HEAD—Genève’s new space inauguration. 

 

To inaugurate their new space, La Haute Ecole d’Art et Design de Genève, HEAD organised a large exhibition. Mixing historical drawings, graduate projects from all departments, commissioned art pieces, and curated spaces around the new buildings.  

Modular Display System

For the occasion, we designed a modular display system that could be reproduced in different sizes, spaces. Easy to assemble and disassemble, stock and re-design on future occasions, the modular design is made of colored metal connectors, wooden circular bars, and metallic plates attached to the wood with metal binders. 

The modules took the form of tables, exhibition panels, as well as a signage system that worked with the exhibition display design, to distribute and organize information around the spaces.  

We also decided to use the module system for the diploma ceremony happening at the same time. We declined the modules to design the photocall and the entrance piece, key scenography elements for HEAD—Genève graduation show, using the graphic design elements designed by Ismael Abdallah and Constance Jacob for the event’s poster. 

The Context

La Haute Ecole d’Art et Design de Genève, HEAD is renowned for the quality of its bachelor’s and master’s degrees. One can apply Fine Arts, Cinema, Interior Architecture, Space and Communication, Visual Communication. As well as Fashion and Accessory Design. It has established itself as a leading school of art and design in Europe.   

By the end of the academic year of 2021-2022, HEAD—Genève celebrated the yearly diploma ceremony and exceptionally, the opening of a new campus. This extension would reunite all the students from the different departments in two main campuses instead of five. 

Photos: Guillaume Collignon HEAD—Genève & Ivan Lavague 

HEAD 2022 Inauguration - Modular Display System
HEAD 2022 Inauguration - Modular Display System

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Archizoom

Feminism versus Professionalism, a typographic portrayal. 

In collaboration with: Garage Cube 

The answer to an invitation to participate “Do Not Carry Your Flag Too Low”, a Matrix exhibition translated into a screen installation. The aim was to showcase the duality between Feminism and spatial practices. 

Archizoom invited Trojans Collective to participate as a guest collective to produce a new design piece that would accompany the Matrix exhibition. We decided to work on the link between Matrix and us, on the common reflections about collectivity, and models of practice.  

Using one of their old posters as a starting point, which title was: Feminism versus Professionalism. We were interested in the opposition between the two concepts, and how to we could rethink and update that juxtaposition.  

For our process, we went through the Matrix writings, and spotted two identities. On one hand the classical figure of how an architect is supposed to be: professional, individual, expert, masculine, precise. On the other hand, a more inclusive identity of a group of people working together. Just like Matrix women: diverse, and plural. They themselves describes the way they were perceived using words like confused, emotional, feminist, or self-taught.  

The Screen Installation

From this process, we created two blocks of words, written in self-made DIY typography. By using construction elements and following Matrix’s spirit in their communication. The two types belong to opposite worlds. They were side by side to propose another reading, relationship, and duality between them. We did that by adding an alternating preposition in between, changing “versus” for “along” or “with” or “inside”.  

The screen installation took the shape of a video composition across four screens. Each screen displayed the words in movement, using different timings, thus proposing a constant change of meaning and pairing.

The Context

The 8th of March 2022, opened “Do Not Carry Your Flag Too Low” an exhibition by Archizoom.

In 1974, EPFL was one of the first schools to establish a public program on architecture. In 2007, after a retrospective on the Italian group Archizoom Associati, the name was adopted for the exhibition space. Inspired by this alert and critical spirit, Archizoom space at the EPFL is an invitation to look at architecture by challenging preconceived assumptions.  

“Do Not Carry Your Flag Too Low” presented actions from the “Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative” showcasing the inclusiveness of their buildings and common spaces, as well as the archives of the radical 1980s feminist architecture practice Matrix. Their work explored issues about community and the built environment and highlighted the implications of feminist theory and critique on architecture and urban design.